Ask E.T.: Edward Tufte Presidential Appointment

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Edward Tufte Presidential Appointment

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, March 5, 2010 President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

WASHINGTON

President Obama announced his intent to appoint several individuals to serve on the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. Their bios are below.

President Obama said, "These impressive individuals will be valued additions to our team as we work to confront the challenges facing our nation. I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come."

Steven Koch, Appointee for Member, Recovery Independent Advisory Panel
Steven Koch is a Vice Chairman and Co-Chairman of Credit Suisse's Mergers and Acquisitions Group. He joined Credit Suisse in 1985. Mr. Koch also teaches in the Director's Consortium, a semi-annual seminar he helped to organize, that is sponsored by the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Stanford Law School. He serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sinai Health System in Chicago and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, The Board of Trustees of the Francis W. Parker School and the Green Ribbon Committee of the Chicago Climate Action Plan. Mr. Koch received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and his B.A. from Hampshire College.

Chris Sale, Appointee for Member, Recovery Independent Advisory Panel
Chris Sale is Vice President for Development Finance at CHF International where she provides guidance and informs policy for the CHF International's microenterprise, housing finance, and small to medium enterprise lending programs. Ms. Sale has more than twenty years of experience in finance and development, having served as the Deputy Advisor for External Relations for the Inter-American Development Bank, Deputy to the Chairman and CFO of the FDIC, COO of the US Small Business Administration, among other positions. She is currently a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and the Finance and Investment Chair for the National Partnership for Women and Families. She received an MBA from American University and completed her undergraduate work at Boston University.

Malcolm K. Sparrow, Appointee for Member, Recovery Independent Advisory Panel
Malcolm K. Sparrow is a Professor of the Practice of Public Management at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he has been teaching since 1988. Before joining the Harvard University faculty, Dr. Sparrow served 10 years with the British Police Service, gaining extensive experience in criminal investigation and rising to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector. At Harvard his research and teaching has focused on the distinctive challenges faced by regulatory and law enforcement agencies as they seek to control risks and threats of various kinds. Dr. Sparrow has authored several books and worked closely with U.S. and overseas regulators on issues including crime, terrorism, corruption, fraud, environmental protection, safety management and regulatory compliance. He holds a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, a MPA from the Kennedy School, and a MA in mathematics from Cambridge University.

Edward Tufte, Appointee for Member, Recovery Independent Advisory Panel
Edward Tufte is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University. He wrote, designed, and self-published The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, Visual Explanations, and Beautiful Evidence, which have received 40 awards for content and design. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Society for Technical Communication, and the American Statistical Association. He received his PhD in political Science from Yale University and BS and MS in statistics from Stanford University.

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From ET:

I will be serving on the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. This Panel advises The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, whose job is to track and explain $787 billion in recovery stimulus funds:

"The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board was created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 with two goals:
To provide transparency in relation to the use of Recovery-related funds.
To prevent and detect fraud, waste, and mismanagement.
Earl E. Devaney was appointed by President Obama to serve as chairman of the Recovery Board. Twelve Inspectors General from various federal agencies serve with Chairman Devaney. The Board issues quarterly and annual reports to the President and Congress and, if necessary, "flash reports" on matters that require immediate attention. In addition, the Board maintains the Recovery.gov website so the American people can see how Recovery money is being distributed by federal agencies and how the funds are being used by the recipients.
Mission statement: To promote accountability by coordinating and conducting oversight of Recovery funds to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse and to foster transparency on Recovery spending by providing the public with accurate, user-friendly information."

I'm doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service. And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do. Maybe I'll learn something. The practical consequence is that I will probably go to Washington several days each month, in addition to whatever homework and phone meetings are necessary.

-- Edward Tufte, March 7, 2010

This gives me the hope that innovation and inspiration is still alive in the new administration. We raise our glass to you and look forward to some feedback for us when possible.

-- Kaveh Bazargan (email), March 7, 2010

Thank you for taking on this role. My first thought is that your skills will be clearly evident in the transparency of the reporting. I think of your excellent work on Challenger and Columbia and anticipate those skills being applied to understanding the distribution of $787 billion of the people's taxes.

Congratulations and thank you.

-- Kevin Hoffman (email), March 8, 2010

Congratulations!

This should be a worthy experience for you. Can you share it with us in a "Tufte goes to Washington" journal? (I suspect this thread will do nicely.)

-- Vassilis Golfinopoulos (email), March 8, 2010

Mr. Tufte,

I attended to one of your Beautiful Evidence events, and I can't think of anyone more qualified to graphically explain the recovery stimulus fund.

Look forward to review your work with Mr. Obama.

Regards, Mau.

-- Mau Sandoval (email), March 8, 2010

Congratulations! The first thing I thought when I heard the news was that White House press releases are about to get a whole lot more sparklines. :-)

-- David Leppik (email), March 8, 2010

Mr. Tufte, So glad to hear that you'll be a part of this. I'm sure you'll be able to help make the data accessible to mere citizens. I'm sure you'll ask the hard questions as well. (I'm thinking of Richard Feynman's valuable service on the panel investigating the Challenger disaster, not that the 2 are the same, but he was someone from outside of government who used his unique perspective to make very important contributions.) Good luck to you and thanks for serving! Matt Taylor

-- Matthew Taylor (email), March 8, 2010

Congratulations on your appointment. It is certainly an area in which you should be able to contribute something useful... though, government commissions being what they are, you may be forced to resort to Feynman-esque tactics to do so.

Do keep in mind that one of the serious concerns with the existing website is the quality of the underlying data. You have undoubtedly heard the stories of the non-existent Congressional districts being included in the data reporting. A deeper concern, from a data- quality standpoint, has to do with the "job created or saved" data. Most of this data, as I understand it, is self-reported by the recipients of stimulus funding, provided in answer to a form which requires that information to be filled out. There's no independent validation of the self-reported figures, and little guidance given to the funding recipients as to how to answer that question. There's significant concern that most simply tally up the salaries which will be directly paid by the funding and report that, perhaps also adding some multiplier for indirect jobs presumed to be created by every federal dollar spent in a community. There are deep issues of economic assumptions there, of course, but there's also the reality that many of those jobs are not really "saved" by the stimulus funding, because the stimulus funding is merely being used as a substitute for state funding which would have almost certainly been used for the same purpose anyway, but which now can be diverted towards projects not covered by stimulus funding.

For these and other reasons, I think a big part of the challenge of this project is to provide information while also clearly conveying the uncertainties and unreliabilities of the underlying data.

Best of luck to you with this project!

-- Patrick Martin (email), March 8, 2010

Congrats Professor Tufte:

Our nation needs more service.

Quite nice example of using visualization for recovery data here on Riski:

http://freerisk.org/wiki/index.php/Recovery#California_Stimulus_Map

kind regards, Cate Long

-- Cate Long (email), March 8, 2010

Congratulations. I have been a follower of your work for quite some time, and I firmly believe that government accountability can greatly benefit from clarity in data analysis and visualization. All taxpayers want to know for what purpose their dollars are being used, but no one needs another useless pie chart. Looking forward to your contribution to the panel. Can you share with us anything about your expectations, and what you think may come out of this process (from you specifically, not from the panel in general)? Best regards, -S

-- Serge VK (email), March 8, 2010

Congratulations! (I hope.) I can't think of a better contributor to help keep the policymakers' thinking aligned with the idea that not all big numbers are the same big number--almost a trillion is quite a bit bigger than $20 million, for example.

-- Richard Careaga (email), March 8, 2010

This might be the most reassuring thing I've read all year. Best of luck!

-- Jess S. (email), March 8, 2010

Congratulations on your appointment, and thanks for making yourself available in this important capacity. In spite of our human and bureaucratic failings, many of us in government service follow your recommendations — or at least try to follow them — daily to communicate clearly and more effectively. Glad to have you (officially) aboard!

-- Cliff Tyllick (email), March 9, 2010

Congratulations and thank you for your service. I hope they will be able to use your insights to promote clear thinking as well as effective communication. It would be wonderful if you can keep us updated here as to where we might see signs of your influence.

-- David H. Brown (email), March 10, 2010

Congratulations!

Everybody with whom I share an office was very excited to learn of your appointment.

What a terrific forum for intelligent information presentation!

-- Andrea (email), March 10, 2010

Bravo to Mr. Tufte's appointment in the oversight of business that is critical to all Americans. I took Mr. Tufte's invaluable seminar in Boston, MA and was struck by not only his depth regarding all things statistical, but more important, his profound sense of intellectual honesty. This is a characteristic in short supply in our public life. I hope his example becomes infectious among other appointees . . .

Tom Rhea (Berklee College of Music)

-- Tom Rhea (email), March 12, 2010

Remember your own advice: Ask, "What would Feynman do?"

Re-read, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?"

-- curt (email), March 16, 2010

My most extreme and grateful congratulations go to Barack Obama.

ET, it's his best hire EVER not soon enough.

-- Megan Jaegerman (email), March 22, 2010

In Transparency for the Public Sector, Professor Edward L Glaeser makes a point, not his intended point, extra credit, that a great deal of transparency has nothing to do with how existing data is gathered or presented, but how policy decisions obfuscate the picture by choosing which data exist at all.

-- Niels Olson (email), May 25, 2010

Scott Simon on NPR brought you back into my consciousness this morning and I went to your website. Having read your first two books early on, but having missed an opportunity to attend one of your seminars years ago, I am delighted for the re-connection.

And even more delighted at your appointment.

Congratulations and thank you for your service. I look forward to intelligible government reports (for a change).

Tim Hathaway

-- Tim Hathaway (email), June 5, 2010

Congratulations, best wishes, and many thanks.

I think many people attracted to your site would be interested in viewing a presentation by Dr. Donald Berwick, nominated by the President to administer Medicare and Medicaid. In 2008, Dr. Berwick gave the Deming Lecture at the Joint Statistical Meetings. It's available in a few formats here: http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2008/webcasts/ (a large download, btw).

While his slides might be lacking (wink) it's one of the most interesting presentations I've stumbled upon and it raises many interesting points about health care.

Regards.

-- Joe McCaughey (email), June 24, 2010